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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Trader who wrote (13863)	12/26/1997 1:38:00 PM
From: Steve Robinett	Respond to of 70976

John, The first time I bought AMAT at about 26 (pre-split), the chart looked terrible. In fact, it looked so bad that even after I decided I was looking a a great company that was cheap, I dithered for three days trying to find out why it had been pounded. It's often the case that the technicals look the worst when it's time to buy and vice-versa. Your macro approach to tech stocks has a lot of merit. On volatility, I find the best indicator for longer term volatility is the implied volatility in leaps. Last week, AMAT's was about 75% on Jan 2000 leaps, probably due to the recent decline. It may have fallen off a bit since then. Option volatility gives you a read on something like the present perception of the stock's potential annualized volatility and associated risks. To compare apples and mice, Disney (which looks to me a bit expensive) has an implied volatility of about 25%, quite low, indicating that option players don't anticipate much movement in the underlaying issue. Best, -Steve

To: John Trader who wrote (13863)	12/26/1997 1:58:00 PM
From: greg nus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

AMAT Thread! I have the distinct "gut feeling" all the selling in AMAT is over. Of coase today's shortened trading session is a low volume day. But there is a true calm to the market the kind that proceed a Bull Run. Analists are now assessing the carnage in the tech sector and characterizing it as "overkill" and may use the bargain basement prices as a reason to rally the sector. Also the Nasdaq may have been artificialy held down in comparison to the S&P 500 by the global Anti-Trust suit which is near final settlement. Trading desks would have had to sell of inventories to recognize gains to cover the settlement costs colectivly of over a $1 Billion dollars. With this out of the way Traders will be back to business as usual. Also Can you think of a better place for traders to put their Christmas bonus to work. Bonuses this year will set a new record. As brokerage houses post record earnigs inspite of the one time Anti-Trust settlement costs.